Now you’ll really know what to expect when you’re expecting.

Researchers at Columbia University have created a rapid test that accurately detects whether a fetus has extra or missing chromosomes — potentially revolutionizing pregnancy forever.

The “Short-read Transpore Rapid Karyotyping,” or “STORK” for short, is able to pick up an array of genetic disorders by testing tissue from a fetus. Cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease and Fragile X syndrome, which can cause severe intellectual disability, are just some of the genetic disorders that can be screened for.

Researchers, whose work was funded by the National Institutes of Health, recently conducted a study of the STORK test on 278 samples, concluding that it had an accuracy rate of 99.5%.

The test costs as little as $50 to run and the results are returned within hours. It’s a marked change from current genetic testing, which usually takes days to complete and costs expectant parents thousands of dollars.

“Overall, the study shows that STORK is comparable to standard clinical tests and has many advantages,” NIH declared in a statement released last Thursday, proclaiming the test had the potential to drastically “improve the quality of reproductive healthcare.”

The organization also stated that STORK could increase access to genetic testing for a huge number of expecting women and help identify genetic disorders that cause miscarriage.

“Currently, professional societies only recommend genetic testing if a person has had multiple miscarriages,” NIH declared. “But an easy, cost-effective test like STORK can potentially be offered after the first miscarriage.”

Meanwhile, the test could also revolutionize the IVF process.

“Currently, embryos [used during IVF] must be frozen while genetic tests are run and analyzed before implantation. STORK’s ability to provide results within hours can presumably eliminate this freezing step, which saves time and cost,” NIH further proclaimed.

Details of the researchers’ study on the 278 samples were published in the New England Journal of Medicine last week.

For each of the samples, different types of tissue were tested, including small parts of placental tissue and the amniotic fluid that surrounds an unborn fetus.

The tissue samples were sent through a “short-read preparation’ phase,” whereby the DNA of the tissue is read and subsequently sequenced in less than two hours. The results concluded that 63 of the 278 fetuses would be born with a genetic disorder of some kind.

The results were then compared against testing done by a CLIA-certified lab that currently conducts standard pre-natal screenings, with the results found to be a match 99.5% of the time.